


sweet nothings, sweet everythings

by spinoffprotagonist



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, I was dealt with second-hand embarrassment writing this, M/M, hints of sunaosakita if you squint, inarizaki shenanigans, kabedon as a plot device, pocky and vine as the chosen agents of romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26359318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinoffprotagonist/pseuds/spinoffprotagonist
Summary: “Kita-senpai,” Rintarou said carefully, on the verge of shaming himself forever, though he swung an arm up to rest on Osamu’s shoulder with a lazy tilt of his head towards Kita in an effort to seem casual. “Do you know what a kabedon is?”
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke/Suna Rintarou
Comments: 22
Kudos: 159





	sweet nothings, sweet everythings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eclipsed (lucitae)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucitae/gifts).



> tldr: it's not gay if you do it for the vine, until it is.
> 
> check the end notes for a bonus ;)

“Kita-senpai,” Rintarou said carefully, on the verge of shaming himself forever, though he swung an arm up to rest on Osamu’s shoulder with a lazy tilt of his head towards Kita in an effort to seem casual. “Do you know what a kabedon is?”

He was answered with silence, followed by a slow blink as Kita thumbed through the stack of volleyball training camp forms in his arms. _Flip. Flip._ Two sheets of paper were picked out with deft fingers. Kita’s arm was extended forward, waiting for either Suna or Osamu to take them from him. “Suna. I don’t see how that is relevant. I’m only here to drop off these forms.”

Rintarou could feel Osamu shake with amused laughter, poking fun at _him_. He dropped his arm from Osamu’s shoulder immediately to dig his elbow in Osamu’s ribs. It _was_ a stupid question, in retrospect, but he couldn’t help but ask anyway.

“Jus’ curious, Kita-san,” Osamu replied on his behalf, cheerily wriggling his fingers around Rintarou’s waist to jab him right back. That had already been anticipated, however ‒ Rintarou twisted his torso away and knocked the offending hand aside before it reached anywhere near him. “Surely ya saw all the fun stuff people ‘ave been doin’ on Vine,” Osamu continued, like nothing was happening. “The kabedon challenge is startin’ to get real popular, ‘specially in our school.”

Kita watched the two of them, face placid, with only the slightest raise of his eyebrows to suggest that he was mildly amused at best by their childish scuffle. “Well,” he started, the weight of his words drawing the attention of the two, “Of course I know what a kabedon is.”

“...hold up, you _do_?”

“Ya don’t need to look so shocked, Suna,” Kita said, glancing down at the forms in his hand and back up to meet Rintarou’s eyes meaningfully. “Akagi has shown me his shoujo manga before. Though I assume the teenagers on Vine don’t wear cat ears in these scenarios.”

That brought up a whole lot more questions about Akagi’s literary preferences, but Kita was staring so evenly at Rintarou, increasing pressure emanating from those steady golden-brown eyes, that he didn’t prod and simply took the forms from Kita. Even that mere gesture should have been more careful, Rintarou realised, the moment his fingers accidentally brushed past Kita’s knuckles as the paper was passed over to him. He quickly tossed a form over the Osamu, watching the latter splutter indignantly in trying to catch the form before it fell on the floor. “No cat ears as far as I’m aware of, senpai.”

_Senpai,_ Osamu mouthed teasingly at Rintarou when Kita wasn’t looking, clutching his form in one hand and curling the other into a fist over his heart, feigning a doe-eyed stare. _Haha, ahooo_. The mocking tilt of his mouth stretched into an innocently bright smile the moment Kita looked back at them both. “No cat ears,” he echoed, grinning. “So, ya up fer it, Kita-san?”

Somehow, the odd combination of Rintarou’s deference and Osamu’s over-casualness was enough to satisfy Kita. “What do you need me for in this kabedon challenge, then?”

Oh. Rintarou hadn’t expected them to get this far. “We can combine the kabedon and Pocky challenge, to make it interesting,” he offered. It was the first thing that popped up in his mind, mostly because he was hungry and thinking about the box of strawberry Pocky in his school bag. He turned aside to take the snack out, tearing open the box and the white packaging with a satisfying _rip_ sound. “If you're okay with it, Kita-senpai.”

“Isn't it usually a guy and a girl who does this?” Kita asked, finally setting aside the other forms to give his full attention to Rintarou. His eyes narrowed, deep in thought. “Though Akagi's shoujo also‒”

“It's fine if it's for the Vine,” Rintarou interjected as Osamu opened his mouth to clarify _what_ exactly it was their senpai had been reading. “Everyone will get it. I've seen the guys in Gin's class do the challenge too. And if anyone in our class minds, they’ve all gone downstairs for break.”

A hum of assent from Kita settled things. Osamu positively beamed at Kita as he slipped a hand into Rintarou's pocket to fish out his phone. “I'm filmin'," he declared before Rintarou could say anything, as revenge for earlier. "Ya can have fun with the challenge of not bein' a wuss.”

“ _You_ go first,” Rintarou argued, very much being a wuss. He grabbed his phone back from Osamu. “ _I_ need to check the camera angle because you can never do it correctly.”

“Can ya believe this shit, Kita-san,” came the throwaway retort, as Osamu rolled his eyes and headed over to the side of their classroom, looking back to make sure Kita was following. “Hol’ on, who’s doin’ the kabedon? It’s usually the taller person, but that feels kinda weird though… would it be disrespectful fer me to kabedon a senior?”

“Osamu, since when have you cared about‒”

“Then I’ll do it,” Kita said, with a decisive tone that left no room for argument. Or, rather, a tone that conveyed _please stop uttering nonsense before I leave the classroom right now._ Same thing really.

They shut up. Osamu gave a lazy thumbs-up as he shuffled around Kita to make a bored expression in the direction of Rintarou’s phone camera, though that was just a touch off his normal face. Rintarou sighed exasperatedly on Kita’s behalf and brought his phone up, taking a few steps to the side as he tried to find a good angle with decent lighting. It was just a Vine, but damn well he was going to make it a good quality one. “Okay. Get your ass here and hold it exactly how I’m holding it.”

Another roll of the eyes as Osamu breezed past Kita and took the phone from Rintarou, steadily grasping it in place. “M’kay. Go do yer thing.”

“Finally I can trust you to‒” Rintarou broke off as Osamu suddenly set down the phone and waved a hand over his back as he yelled “TOILET!” to dash away and disappear from the classroom. “Osamu‒ what the _hell_ I _literally_ spent like a minute figuring out where to position my phone you _bi‒_ ”

“Suna,” Kita cut in, a warning in his voice. “It’s alright. Jus’ prop it up against somethin’ else and set a camera timer.”

He complied, standing his phone against a stack of books, and checking to make sure Kita was still within shot. _Ugh_. He’d steal Osamu’s lunch later as payback. Well, his backup lunch, since Osamu had gotten used to Rintarou sneaking bites off his bento after the past year or so of being in the same class.

Deciding this was the best it could get, Rintarou stopped fidgeting with his phone, set the ten-second timer and made his way over to Kita, drawing out a Pocky stick from the box. “Here goes,” he stated, a hint of nerves showing as he leaned against the wall and popped one end of the Pocky stick in between his teeth.

It was only at the very second Kita leaned towards him that Rintarou realised, approximately ten and a half minutes too late, that this whole thing was _not_ a very good idea. Not when Kita shifted half a step forward, pressed a hand gently against the wall next to Rintarou’s head, and brought himself _far_ more closely than Rintarou had expected from his captain. Not when the proximity made Rintarou lose his train of thought, and instead feel the heat of a blush threatening to bloom on his cheeks.

This. This was unexpected.

The _snap_ - _crunch_ sound of Kita biting down on the Pocky stick was jarring enough that Rintarou suddenly jolted his face away and straightened his back against the wall, looking everywhere but at Kita’s face. “Smrfgh,” he apologised, hurriedly swallowing the rest of his Pocky stick and somehow managing not to choke. His face already felt hot. “Sorry, Kita-senpai, I didn’t expect. Um. I thought kabedons were usually more forceful.”

“It wouldn’t be very safe if ya hit yer head against the wall,” Kita said matter-of-factly, peering up at Rintarou. He didn’t look bothered at all by Rintarou’s blunder. “Did I not do it correctly?”

That got him to meet Kita’s eyes again. “No, well, I- I mean. The point of it is to recreate what it’s like in the manga. We could try again and do it properly.” Rintarou widened his eyes as he slid into the pleading tone that worked on nobody except his older sister at age ten. “Please, Kita-senpai?”

Where on _earth_ was Osamu when he needed that idiot’s puppy-eyed look to get him out of trouble.

For some reason, however, that seemed persuasive enough for Kita to nod and move back to allow Rintarou to stop the recording and take another Pocky stick. This time, he hit the timer and stood a little further from Kita as he raised the pink-coated snack to his lips‒

‒ only for Kita to throw a hand up against the wall and simultaneously move closer so that Rintarou instinctively slunk backwards until his back hit the wall, cornered by Kita’s forearm.

Not breaking eye contact, Kita’s other hand pulled Rintarou’s fingers away to take a bite out of the Pocky stick, continuing to eat away at the snack until they were close. Close enough for Rintarou to notice everything at once in high definition. The flecks of gold in Kita’s eyes glittering like fairy dust in the sunlight. The light freckles across Kita’s nose. The dark smudge of Kita’s eyelashes fluttering as he closed the gap and pressed his mouth to Rintarou’s in a gentle kiss.

There was no stopping the rapid flush spreading across Rintarou’s face as Kita drew back, let go of Rintarou’s hand and smiled, the edges around his eyes crinkling. _Smiled,_ with fox-like satisfaction dancing across his mouth‒ and _nope he was not going to think about Kita’s mouth right now nope_ ‒ and Kita stepped back fully to give Rintarou space. He didn’t know whether to be thankful for the chance to _think_ coherently again, or to mourn the loss of warmth on his lips and hand.

What. What the heck just happened.

“Did I,” Osamu knocked on the classroom door as he reappeared from the toilet, his loud voice breaking the stillness that had settled between them. “Did I miss somethin’ while I was gone?”

_No, nothing at all, our captain just kissed me on the mouth and I’m having a crisis because I kind of liked it and I don’t know what that means._

That _aho_ really had the worst timing.

Kita’s smile easily melted into a neutral expression as he collected Rintarou’s phone to watch the video, while Rintarou covered his cheeks under the guise of brushing off stray Pocky crumbs, willing his blush to fade. He swallowed down the last bit of his snack before sidling up to bump his knuckles against Osamu’s temple, just because. Rintarou sped up walking across the classroom to join Kita so that he could delete the video before Osamu could see it and embarrass him for all of eternity.

“It’s a good video,” Kita said, handing the phone over to Rintarou. “But the lightin’s a little off.”

At this point, Rintarou couldn’t tell if Kita really meant that. He couldn’t tell _anything_ anymore when it came to Kita. “S-so then, Ki‒”

The school bell rang, signalling the end of their break.

“Sorry. I’ll have t’ go back to my own classroom. See ya at club practice later, Suna. Osamu.” Kita dipped his head in farewell, smiled politely, and left with the paper forms and chaos in his wake.

Osamu looked gleefully mystified at their exchange. “ _What happened,_ ” he asked, less of a question and more of a demand. He bumped shoulders with Rintarou impatiently. “Did Kita-san really go fer it?”

Their teacher entered the classroom, along with the rest of the students, conveniently giving Rintarou a chance to escape the questioning for now. “Well, you know Kita-senpai,” was all he said, leaving it at that.

And if he fixedly stared at the chalkboard for the whole lesson, and circumvented every attempt from Osamu to prod information out of him, at least Kita wasn’t around to disapprove of it.

  
  


Club was awful today.

It wasn’t because the Miyas were being loud and obnoxious and generally themselves. It wasn’t because their coach had decided that everyone needed to work on just their receives today. It wasn’t even because Akagi had gladly allowed Osamu to borrow some of his questionable shoujo manga.

_No_ , Rintarou thought. It was because he couldn’t stop paying attention to Kita’s every little movement. The way Kita licked his lips. Drank water from his bottle. The shape of his mouth changing with every syllable as he gave instructions to the team.

“Suna. Yer bein’ too distracted.” Kita materialised next to him, his signature stare of mild-disapproval-but-in-a-way-that-made- _you_ -feel-bad burning into Rintarou. “Focus on what ya need to do now, and focus on what ya need to do later when it’s the appropriate time.”

Was that supposed to be some kind of hint, or was Rintarou reading too much into things?

He nodded, silently. It took all his self discipline to keep his eyes on the volleyball, and not Kita’s back as his captain returned to the other side of the court.

“What’re ya sighin’ away for, Aran?” he heard Kita ask. Rintarou glanced over for a fraction of a second. Aran was pinching the bridge of his nose and giving a reply that he couldn’t hear. Kita shrugged and returned to his receiving stance, sweeping his gaze around the court. Kita tilted his head upwards the moment he noticed Rintarou staring again.

He looked up too late to watch the volleyball hit him straight in the face.

“Sorry, Suna!” Kosaku hollered, over the sound of the shitheaded Miya duo’s snickering. “Are ya alright there?”

Rintarou brought his fingers up to touch his face. “M’fine, don’t worry,” he said casually, brushing it off. “I’ll focus on what I need to do now.”

And what he needed to do later.

  
  


The moment club practice was over, Rintarou scooped up his school bag and headed over to the vending machine outside the sports hall, slotting in a few coins and selecting a drink. Fuji apple juice. Red and gold label, green plastic bottle. Osamu hadn’t gotten the chance to plague him again with questions, because the Miyas had to get home early to eat dinner with their cousins. He almost missed having Osamu around as support, though. If anything went wrong‒ and _several_ things could go wrong here ‒ Osamu was always far better at patching things up than he was.

_Thump._ The bottle dropped down, and Rintarou reached inside the vending machine slot to retrieve his drink, unscrewing the cap and taking a sip. The cool sweetness of apple juice ran down his throat, refreshing enough that he felt like he might actually have the guts to do what he was about to do.

“Suna.”

Rintarou startled at the familiar voice, and shuffled aside to let Kita buy his own drink from the machine. He watched pensively, as Kita unzipped his coin purse and fitted five coins into the coin slot, nerves growing with the methodical _clink_ of each coin dropping inside the machine. Kita surveyed the drink options slowly, his raised hand hovering over the second row from the top, and finally pressed a button.

Peach tea drink. Pink and white plastic packaging around a clear bottle. Kita opened his drink with a quick twist of his fingers and drank from the bottle.

So Kita liked sugary drinks, too.

That was no surprise, Rintarou thought., the memories of strawberry Pocky fresh in his head.

Was this an appropriate time, then?

“Kita-senpai,” he started. Careful and on the verge of shaming himself forever, if he was wrong about things. “Just now, during the first break…”

How should he put it? Rintarou couldn’t even name what he felt to his own self. Let alone Kita.

He shrugged, speechless, as if that conveyed everything he needed to. Looked back up to Kita for help, even though it was his own sort-of-maybe confession.

Lucky then, that Kita always seemed to understand the things people didn’t say aloud.

Kita gently edged Rintarou backwards, until his back bumped against the hard surface of the wall. This felt familiar, and yet there was a soft _something_ in Kita’s movements that hadn’t quite been there before. A little more deliberate. A little more purposeful. Both Kita’s arms went up on either side of Rintarou’s face as Kita leaned in, fairy-dust flecks in his eyes dimming to a lustrous amber in the setting sun. This close, Rintarou could smell the fragrance of peach tea and apple juice mixing with every breath. A reminder of strawberry lingering at the back of his throat.

Well, if he was too cowardly to say anything, he might as well show it with actions. Rintarou angled his head down and kissed Kita lightly on the lips.

He could feel a soft sigh of warm breath against his mouth, as Kita’s eyes fluttered shut. Before Rintarou could pull back properly, however, Kita took his hands off the wall and wiped them against his pants. Two cool palms came up to cup Rintarou’s cheeks instead, keeping him in place, before Kita drew them back into another longer kiss, letting Rintarou savour the sugary-sweet taste of their drinks off Kita’s bottom lip.

“Good enough,” Kita murmured once they broke apart, the pink shade of strawberry Pocky painted all across his face. Rintarou wondered what that meant: the kiss, the half-confession, the‒ 

“ _Yer_ good enough, Suna,” Kita clarified, the same fox-like smile playing at the edge of his mouth again as he looked up at Rintarou through a gentle, half-lidded gaze.

Strawberry pink mirrored on his own face, Rintarou chuckled, both amused at how stupid he probably looked and still, _still_ nervous in front of Kita despite everything that just happened. “Kita-senpai. I think I like you.”

Kita let out a laugh, a mixture of a snort and low giggle, bringing his thumb over to the tender spot on Rintarou’s cheek where the volleyball had hit his face earlier. “Rintarou,” he said, quiet laughter in his voice. “Yes. I think we all know by now.”

There was no way one should’ve been able to make his given name ‒ a common one at that ‒ sound so attractive and affectionate and _fond_ all at once, but Kita always did manage to achieve what most couldn’t.

Skies above, he did like Kita. A lot. Very much. Who wouldn’t?

_Lucky then_. Rintarou smiled back, uncharacteristically bashful, as Kita pressed a kiss to his cheek and curled their hands together. Lucky then that he was the one Kita liked back.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for giving this a read!! this whole fic is entirely because of [this tweet here](https://twitter.com/shokurensei/status/1302872739183693824?s=20) that seized my brain to work on this for the next 2 days. so shoutout to Kuro, and also partially to Basti for the sunaosakita crumbs I decided to leave in here. there may be a part 2 for Osamu in the future, because Kita deserves two boyfriends. and thank you everyone who voted on strawberry as the pocky flavour ❤
> 
> and now, a bonus scene of the first part of this fic, from Kita's POV:
> 
> “Kita-senpai,” Suna started, the normally dry tone in his voice dampened as he looked at Shinsuke with wide eyes. Innocent, if Shinsuke didn’t know any better. The warm olive green of his irises matched the speckle of trees that could be seen outside from the classroom window, though those trees could not capture the same sardonic glint or fox-like cheekiness of Suna’s gaze. He rested an arm on Osamu’s shoulder, tilting his head towards Shinsuke. “Do you know what a kabedon is?”
> 
> Kabedon. A trope in shoujo manga, hand slamming against a wall. Shinsuke let the question hang in the air and blinked patiently at Suna, flipping through the stack of volleyball training camp forms in his arms to pick out two. He offered the forms to Suna, appraisingly. “Suna. I don’t see how that is relevant.” And because he was already beginning to feel like he was about to be swayed into mischief, Shinsuke added, for propriety’s sake: “I’m only here to drop off these forms.”
> 
> Vulpine smiles from both Suna and Osamu. Shinsuke knew full well he couldn’t hold out long against those eager faces.
> 
> Kabedon. Shinsuke considered it. That might make for an interesting school break.


End file.
